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Take your practice further with downloadable recordings of Shinzen's teachings.

A Cure for Guilt and Shame

Duration: 75 minutes

“Blessed are the Flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.” Flexibility is the essence of purification, and Shinzen talks of how to work through fixating tendencies and allow the substance of our senses to become flexible. He talks of three levels of maturity on the spiritual path and how to “love the suffering to death.”

A Cure for Guilt and Shame

Asceticism: Skill in Experiencing Discomfort

Duration: 31 minutes

This recording gives an interesting history of asceticism (discomfort) as defined in some spiritual traditions and the possible value of using discomfort to initiate a process of purification of consciousness. Whether as a spiritual practice or in our daily living, the question is how to do so skillfully or as paraphrased from Thomas Merton, “…not to suffer more than other people, but…to suffer more effectively.”

Compulsion

Confusion, Yuckies & Subtle Vibrations

Duration: 73 minutes

Shinzen discusses various phenomena that arise during meditation and being on the meditative path, such as having pleasant sensations versus icky, creepy ones, feeling confused, scattered and the ‘don’t know mind’, as well as tips leaving a retreat.

Dealing with Fear and Anxiety

Enlightened Rage

Duration: 52 minutes

Begins with a guided meditation instructing you to think about something that makes you angry, to observe what part of that anger involves body sensations and what part involves the thinking process. By keeping track moment by moment of the components of rage and/or anger in the mind and body we can have the experience of & “enlightened rage” (anger that is a pure of flow energy).

Enlightened Rage

Happiness for No Reason

Duration: 58 minutes

Starting with a story of his introduction to a Zen temple and giving entertaining and specific metaphors, Shinzen talks of the definition of Enlightenment and how to be happy independent of conditions.

Happiness for No Reason

How to Get Enlightenment in a Sauna

Duration: 58 minutes

Using different strategies and helpful metaphors, Shinzen describes in detail how to make mindful distinctions of body sensations — going into 3 sub-categories of heat and 3 emotional reactions to heat. He also gives specific applications to pain and to simply walking down the street as quick paths to enlightenment.

How to Get Enlightenment in a Sauna

Learning from the Marathon Monks

Duration: 58 minutes

Referring to the extreme example of commitment of the Marathon Monks, Shinzen talks of how fatigue and physical pain can be the easiest flavors through which to get deep purification. Sleepy tired sensations and our subjective reactions to them can lead to increased energy and focus as well as deeper purification and insight.

Learning from the Marathon Monks

Making Daily Life a Sacred Monastery

Duration: 32 minutes

Transitions are major moments of opportunity; The process of digestion (breaking up into little pieces) of whatever comes up; day to day life stirs up karma juices; retroactive meditation – making a 5 minute determination meditation worth 5 hours; turning daily activity into meditation.

Making Daily Life a Sacred Monastery

Meditating Through Fatigue

Duration: 40 minutes

When you get tired and sleepy it digs down into old material which takes you back to an early period associated with the initial formation of ego. There is an objective need (what the body actually requires) and a subjective need (the desire to avoid or have relief from certain unpleasant sensations). The subjective need can be transcended. Discusses a meditative approach for achieving this.

Pleasure and Purification

Posture, Sleepiness and Discomfort

Duration: 75 minutes

The role of posture in practice; Working with sleepiness; Paying attention to transitions; Meditation as a vaccination against future larger pain; Dealing with discomforts while sitting; Very detailed description of working with pain and physical discomfort; Subjective body sensations/flavors of feeling; Discriminating internally generated feeling states associated with urge, desire and will.

Relationships: The Householder’s Monastery

Sexuality and the Spiritual Path

Duration: 52 minutes

Shinzen gives his opinion as to why there is uptightness and guilt associated with sexual activity in so many cultures. He explains that what we really want is not erotic pleasure as an object, but the fulfillment and purification that comes from having a complete experience of pleasure. This does not depend on the intensity, duration or type of pleasure. Rather, complete pleasure is any pleasure experienced with continuity of awareness and zero interference.

Sexuality and the Spiritual Path

Spiritual Bodywork

Duration: 59 minutes

Tells the benefits of maintaining a meditative techniques when you are receiving a massage or other body work. Gives practical tips on how to do this. A valuable resource to those who give and receive massage.

Spiritual Bodywork

Step by Step Guide to Dealing with Huge Emotions

Duration: 54 minutes

Shinzen talks about some huge emotions and how meditation techniques can help on a daily basis. Topics include fear, phobia, making feelings elastic, the true alchemy, divide & conquer, the taste of purification and the math of purification.

Step by Step Guide to Dealing with Huge Emotions

The Dark Night Of The Soul

Duration: 50 minutes

Discusses an awkward intermediate state in spiritual development during which old motivations are seen as illusory. Everything is the same, so why do anything? Elaborates on how to get through this experience of lack of vitality and continue to grow personally and spiritually.

The Dark Night Of The Soul

Thought and Compulsiveness - Monkey Mind

Duration: 63 minutes

One of the greatest challenges for people when they meditate is the wandering mind. Shinzen outlines four techniques for working with & monkey mind. This tape also contains information on how to work with compulsive addictive behaviors.